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Fucale and Paterson will be Canada’s goaltenders at the world junior championship in Sweden and they’ll be tasked with giving Canada the big-game goaltending that has been elusive since Canada’s string of five-straight gold medals ended four years ago.

Canada hasn’t won gold since and we’ve seen our results backsliding from silvers in 2010 and ’11 to bronze in 2012 to out of the medals last year.

Given that and the hand-wringing going into this NHL season over who would be in net for Canada at the Olympics, you would have thought we didn’t have anybody in this country who could stop a puck.

Some people might look around the NHL and think the rest of the world has zoomed by us when it comes to producing goaltending talent.

But Sean Burke, the Phoenix Coyotes assistant general manager and goaltending coach, who is also part of Hockey Canada’s revamped management team to oversee the Program of Excellence, looked at the issue from the other end.

“I don’t think we’re any less good at developing,” Burke said. “I just think the other countries have done a good job of catching up. There was a time if Canada was going to put together a team for an international tournament they could have iced two Canadian teams and had three goaltenders on each team that were capable of winning.

“Now you have more European goalies in the league, the U.S. has developed some really good goaltenders. I just think the competition has gotten a lot stiffer. I don’t think Canada has lagged behind ... I just think some of the other countries, which maybe it used to be their weakness, it’s no longer their weakness.”

When asked about Fucale, the Montreal Canadiens prospect and Memorial Cup winner with the Halifax Mooseheads, Burke said: “He’s one of those players who gives your team confidence. I think you can ask anybody who plays with him or plays against him and he has a presence about him. He’s had a lot of success. He’s proven to be a winner at different levels. All the things that I saw about him make you very confident with a goaltender like that.”

While winning five golds in a row, we tend to forget how close a bunch of those games were: overtime wins, shootout wins, last-minute heroics.

That’s how fine the line is in a short tournament.

It has been a while since Canada had the benefit of a guy playing out of his mind like, say, Carey Price did in 2007 with a .961 save percentage. He was named the top goaltender in the tournament that year and Steve Mason followed up with the same honour in 2008. A Canadian goaltender hasn’t won the honour since.

Canada hasn’t led the tournament in team save percentage since 2008.

Is if fair to put so much focus on goaltending?

Probably not, but that doesn’t mean we don’t do it.

“In a tournament like the world juniors where one game could eliminate you, things can really get magnified. I don’t think in any of the last number of years we’d say we were real satisfied with the result,” Burke said.

“Unfortunately if you don’t have the great game at the right time, it can be the difference. To me, that’s all it has been. It’s not like the regular season where you have a huge body or work to look at. You have to judge basically on one game if you get eliminated and all the good games are forgotten, especially when we’re in Canada and we’re expected to win.

“I don’t think the goaltending has been poor by any means. It doesn’t lag behind other countries. I think goaltending is our strength. Unfortunately, what it comes down to is having that big game at the right time and I’m confident this year we have the guys who can do that.”

Fucale and Paterson will be Canada’s goaltenders at the world junior championship in Sweden and they’ll be tasked with giving Canada the big-game goaltending that has been elusive since Canada’s string of five-straight gold medals ended four years ago.

Canada hasn’t won gold since and we’ve seen our results backsliding from silvers in 2010 and ’11 to bronze in 2012 to out of the medals last year.

Given that and the hand-wringing going into this NHL season over who would be in net for Canada at the Olympics, you would have thought we didn’t have anybody in this country who could stop a puck.

Some people might look around the NHL and think the rest of the world has zoomed by us when it comes to producing goaltending talent.